On getting near Kazán, we found the Volga in full flood. The river spread fifteen versts or more beyond its banks, and we had to travel by water for the whole of the last stage. It was bad weather, and a number of carts and other vehicles were detained on the bank, as the ferries had stopped working.
My keeper went to the man in charge and demanded a raft for our use. The man gave it unwillingly; he said that it was dangerous and we had better wait. But my keeper was in haste, partly because he was drunk and partly because he wished to show his power.
My carriage was placed upon a moderate-sized raft and we started. The weather appeared to improve; and after half an hour the boatman, who was a Tatar, hoisted a sail. But suddenly the storm came on again with fresh violence, and we were carried rapidly downstream. We caught up some floating timber and struck it so hard that our rickety raft was nearly wrecked and the water came over the decking. It was an awkward situation; but the Tatar managed to steer us into a sandbank.
A barge now hove in sight. We called out to them to send us their boat, but the bargemen, though they heard us, went past and gave us no assistance.
A peasant, who had his wife with him in a small boat, rowed up to us and asked what was the matter. “What of that?” he said. “Stop the leak, say a prayer, and start off. There’s nothing to worry about; but you’re a Tatar, and that’s why you’re so helpless.” Then he waded over to our raft.
The Tatar was really very much alarmed. In the first place, my keeper, who was asleep when the water came on board and wet him, sprang to his feet and began to beat the Tatar. In the second place, the raft was Government property and the Tatar kept saying, “If it goes to the bottom, I shall catch it!” I tried to comfort him by saying that in that case he would go to the bottom too.
“But, if I’m not drowned, bátyushka, what then?” was his reply.
The peasant and some labourers stuffed up the leak in the raft and nailed a board over it with their axe-heads; then, up to the waist in the water, they dragged the raft off the sandbank, and we soon reached the channel of the Volga. The current ran furiously. Wind, rain, and snow lashed our faces, and the cold pierced to our bones; but soon the statue of Ivan the Terrible began to loom out from behind the fog and torrents of rain. It seemed that the danger was past; but suddenly the Tatar called out in a piteous voice, “It’s leaking, it’s leaking!”—and the water did in fact come rushing in at the old leak. We were right in the centre of the stream, but the raft began to move slower and slower, and the time seemed at hand when it would sink altogether. The Tatar took off his cap and began to pray; my servant shed tears and said a final good-bye to his mother at home; but my keeper used bad language and vowed he would beat them both when we landed.
I too felt uneasy at first, partly owing to the wind and rain, which added an element of confusion and disorder to the danger. But then it seemed to me absurd that I should meet my death before I had done anything; the spirit of the conqueror’s question—quid timeas? Caesarem vehis!—asserted itself;[[82]] and I waited calmly for the end, convinced that I should not end my life there, between Uslon and Kazán. Later life saps such proud confidence and makes a man suffer for it; and that is why youth is bold and heroic, while a man in years is cautious and seldom carried away.
[82]. The story of Caesar’s rebuke to the boatman is told by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar, chap. 38.